Chocolate Chips

A processed form of chocolate known as chocolate chips permits easy portioning of chocolate for cooking and baking. Chocolate chip cookies were first baked by Ruth Graves Wakefield at the Toll House Inn located in Whitman, Massachusetts. She cut up chunks of a semi-sweet Nestlé chocolate bar and added them to a sugar cookie recipe. The cookies were a huge success and in 1939, in exchange for putting her recipe on Nestlé chocolate bar packaging, she received a lifetime supply of chocolate. In 1941 Nestlé began selling the chocolate as morsels, or chocolate chips.

Types of Chocolate Chips

Chocolate chips were originally made of semi-sweet chocolate, but many flavors are marketed today. These include bittersweet chocolate, mint chocolate, white chocolate, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white and dark swirled chocolate chips.

Semisweet Chocolate Chips (Bittersweet)

Dark chocolate contains much higher percentages of cocoa. Bittersweet, semisweet and "dark" chocolate chips range from 35 percent to 90 percent cocoa. The higher the cocoa percentage, the less sugar. Semisweet chocolate has a small amount of milk solids, generally less than 12 percent.

Unsweetened Chocolate Chips

Unsweetened chocolate is available in chip form, but is not generally available in retail stores. Commercial restaurant suppliers and gourmet stores carry unsweetened chips, containing 99 to 100 percent cocoa, and deep, rich chocolate flavor. They are melted and incorporated into a recipes that have high levels of sugar or sweeteners from other ingredients.

White Chocolate Chips

White chocolate is not considered chocolate by many people, because it contains only the cocoa butter and not the cocoa liquor. White chocolate consists of at least 20 percent cocoa butter, 14 percent milk solids, and sugar. White chocolate chips are most commonly used in cookies, quick breads and melted into mousses and creams.